Test
by ar-men15
Summary: A multichapter WIP that will require time, it went well with the #TrickOrJaq2019 challenge but can also stand alone.
1. Chapter 1

"I don't like tests."

"A girl is right. A man is tired of being tested."

"The Waif said brothers are examined every five years."

"Just so." He already did the math, four years and ten since his previous time; another brother was tested a week before, and for him it was five and three.

They stopped in the middle of the woods to look at the map Jaqen was given the same morning, after the Elder took off their blindfolds; a journey in the darkness by carriage that lasted the whole night.

They had walked at first to climb up a hill, then went down into the forest, on the shores of a small lake. An unknown terrain.  
The atmosphere seemed peaceful, but a man had a strange suspicion, he kept it for himself, not informing Arya about it

It was strange they were tested together, she was scheduled to be admitted to the order in a few weeks and a man believed such a try was not necessary for her, at close distance with her final examination.

A girl had to obey, he repeated Arya since their first meeting, a man named Jaquen H'ghar, a master, had to apply himself the same rule.

His first test was deafness, a week in a world of silence that required all his control.

His second and last was about fencing, an endless flows of duels inside the training room, against his brothers wearing masks,

Defeating physically, indeed, but easier to manage than this uncertainty and the real reason Arya was with him. A test for two, together, was heard only once before within the order, involving two brothers, never an apprentice.

He had been extremely careful with the brothers, his face and gestures deprived ov every emotion

They were walking close, so close their clothes were in contact, breeches and jackets, Jaqen needed to feel arya's presence, his senses were in full alert, a strange restlessness was taking roots inside him.

Then he understood: there were no sounds, no birds, no wind, no living soul in that part of the forest.

They reached a glade, short grass and a pathway difficult to follow, so few the traces were on the ground.

After a short walk, they passed under an arch made of branches, partially dried and dark.  
Arya pointed at the arch with her dagger and Jaqen nodded, the silence was becoming too heavy,

Jaqen fought against the impulse to go back to the beginning of their path, take Arya with him somewhere far from there and forget the test, the faces and the house.

The sensation made him sweat and his legs trembled, he stumbled into a fallen branch with his feet and leaned against a tree, pretending not to show Arya his distress.

She relied on him, he was sure, he could not let his doubts prevail upon her complete trust in him.  
After a dozen of steps it was dark all around, half of the trees were burnt , their trunks bare, without leafs, the ground covered in dust.

Arya grabbed his wrist, her fingers dug into his flesh, she felt his pulse quickening, was for the contact or for the place they were into? His hand covered hers, warm and big.

"I'm here." He reassured her, words that conflicted with his worried face.

"This place is strange, there's danger and magic. Black magic."

"Are you sure?"

"I feel it. My brother taught me, our parents were angry with him but we used to hide in a tower of Winterfell and he went into a sort of trance and grabbed my hand and I was able to listen to the magic."


	2. Chapter 2

man firmly believes the test is done on purpose, his brothers must know about them, their secret has been discovered.

Fool to think a shared bond could be hidden, fool to believe the brothers would let them live in peace. Is he so full of pride to forget the rules and blur the borders of the House?  
Still he's sure he can continue his work, with her at his side, he can follows her and the order, together.

He has build his future on this belief, unrealistic and foolish as it may seem, for the first time in his life as a faceless there is a prize to keep close to the heart, one impossible to renounce.

Arya is restless, she turns continuously.

"Jaqen, what do you think?"

"A man is trying to understand if there is a connection."

"Between this and …us? How can they know?"

The questions linger in the air, too many complications, revelations, a complex situation they are entangled into, together. He has asked her never to speak about it or to reveal what happened that evening. It had to remain private, he is afraid also to discuss with her the topic and still he cannot walk away from her, deny his lovely girl of his touch since that night…

_In the hut over the hills they used for that mission between shepherds they let the barn door open, so that heat - and smell – would enter the room._  
_Too few logs to lit a good fire, they had to make them last for days, it was hard to find good dry wood on the bare mountains._

_Two cups of red wine, half for her, the rest for him, not enough to get tipsy, enough for her pale cheeks to get a little pink. She wrapped herself in a smelling fur, everything sufficed against the cold._

_He sat close, saw her shivering, for a northern girl a sign of distress and slide himself under the furs._

_She stilled, unsure of what he was doing, why his eyes were so sad and his lips smiling at the same time?_

_"Lovely girl, is it better?"_

_She nodded, not trusting her voice should she speak._

_The closeness gave her a new reason to tremble, until he passed an arm over her shoulders and pulled her to him._

_The more the contact, the less the fear. She was indeed a different kind of girl._

_"Jaqen, what are you doing?"_

_"Warming you."_

_Then silence, they observed the flames, Jaqen closed his eyes, he felt at peace, listening to her breath._

_When he woke up, later, his head was resting in her lap, her upper back leaning on their sacks, to rest against something softer than stones._  
_His face turned toward her and he smells something t and it hit his brain like a blow._

_She is ripe. And ready. She is a woman, her body is telling him the right time of the month for mating. She is not aware, but her body wants a man._

_He stops breathing, an impulse rises form the deepest part of his mind._

_His stomach clenches for the force of his desire._

_I can and I cannot, his brain repeats for a minute or an hour._

_He knows she'd be wet, open, ready to accept his flesh, not hurt by his first intrusion, welcoming it._

_And there'd be no dangers, no consequences, he is equipped with the right tea: his seed will die inside her and their lives will be untouched and unmarked by a bastard child._

_How can he take her maidenhead during a mission, he thinks, but his body is only listening to hers, sniffing her scent, feeling the softness of her belly and the firmness of her toned legs._

_She is sleeping, no, just resting, little twists of her hands over his shoulders, a sign of activity._

_Would she accept him as her lover, more than a mentor, more than simply a mate?_

_Because it won't be a rut on the bare ground like animals in heat, his mind imagines a tender coupling of two bodies, sharing touches, intimacies, they were alone for many years_.

_She is his lovely girl, she deserves something good for once in her life._

_But if she'd refuse his gestures, he'd retreat immediately, without complains or disappointment._

_He listens: her increased heartbeat rate, her faster breaths, a little sigh escapes her lips. He dares, nuzzles his face deeper in her lap, her scent gets stronger, she squirms a little but don't push him away._

_She's his. He knows. She knows, since the day he offered her three names. Death for life, life for death._

_Her power over him, since then, he felt bewitched in a way his training never allowed him before._

_His hand moves to touch her back, under the furs, under his cloak she has wrapped around her small frame._

_When fingers meet bare skin, her back arches for the contact._

_Enough for Jaqen to loose his mind, nothing can stop him and he prayed his God she'd welcome more of his gestures._

_Still the willpower, the concentration to be kind and gentle but resolute at the same time, and she leans into him and he feels the luckiest man alive._

_"Trust me, lovely girl. "_

_Clothes opened just to give access, it is cold, warmth is precious and in a short Arya is under him, legs spread out, one bare except for her grey wool socks, the other with the breeches mid tight, his fingers are preparing her and her hands exploring him._

_He gives her few minutes to do so, too strong the need, later she could, if their madness will continue._

_Soon, slowly, he is in her, member, eyes, mouth, brain, he feels only her and she whispers his name and she lets herself go._  
_That strange communion, she wants to partake with him only._

The fog is a wall around them. Suddenly, enveloping them with silence and grey all around. Arya disappears, her grey eyes takes control of all her face.  
She is made of grey.

Fog that invades lungs, noses, ears, eyes, fog is them and they are made of thick fog. They can't see arms and legs.

He calls for her and the words disappear the sound is absorbed by the veil he has all around. He's blind and hits a trunk, a low branch scratches his face, his hands grope, searching for stability and for Arya.

If she can't hear him she'll get lost, without him she's lost and in danger and he's nothing without her. He was used to be nothing, no name and no face, before she wrote his name on his chest with her lips and it felt like fire was marking him.

He needs her by his side, realizes the power of the touch, the sense he denied himself for so long and she awakened in him since he grabbed her body in the act of love for the first time.

They're scared, walking in circles without the sight like it happened in their respective trainings.

His heart ached when she woke up blind and he had no courage to tell her it was just for a while, that she'd adapt and get new powers.  
They have the sense of hearing to compensate, their world is wrapped up in cotton, it is dangerous not knowing where they are.

On the brink of a hole, on the edge of a cliff, near a sword or a predator ready to kill.  
Jaqen stops, forces himself to calm down, for her sake and his own.

He needs to find Arya to keep their link, he admits how important is to use all his remaining senses to locate her. Most of all, smell. The fog is humid and humidity exalts the perfumes of the fallen leafs, the wet stones, the mud on the soil. She is clear as cold and ice, she is a subtle scent of the first day of winter.

She's more used to this blindness, having experimented it a few moons before, she's steadier on her feet, and less trembling. Arya leans her back against a huge tree, wrap her arms around the trunk and calls her brother's help to see what she cannot see, she stills and listens to the voice inside her head.

"Brother? Bran?"

A faint whisper, a bird's wing. "I'm here."

She feels his voice over her, calm and soothing; Bran is always so, when he uses the ravens.

"I need to find my master."

"You've already found him."

"There's only fog around me, Jaqen can't hear me, black magic, Bran."

Arya is connected to her brother's mind, he becomes her light, she can see through the foggy veil that slowly dissolves while she moves.  
Jaqen can't be far, they have parted for a short time, he can't walk away too much, he's sure around; Bran calms her fear, forces Arya to slow down, to think.

"You do want him, don't you?"

"He's the one I need. No one before him."

"And no one after him, sister. Fear not, the same is for him, he values you more than his own life."

Hearing it from Bran spurs a warm sensation inside Arya's heart: her choice has been right, her companion, the man she has marked as his own, is worth of her.

"We are tested. Jaqen thinks by purpose."

"Double faced coin. A test for them, one for you, to see how strong the bond is."

"He's mine, Bran."

"And you are his, body and soul."

The fog is the impalpable grease that did not let her fingers get what she wants, she feels the items, the wet leaves, the rugged trunks, the cold stones but not the unique warmth that means another one, another body.

Bran drifts away, Arya is alone again in her search, it's more than simply finding Jaqen, it's about the importance of the physical side of their bond after the spiritual one they shared since the beginning. They need to trust each other and listen to the flow running through them.

Understanding means clarity, the thick veil disappears and Jaqen is at her side, had been always, she has been too scared to see him.


End file.
